towerofanimus | dear world: i'm pleased to meet you (open)

Entry tags:

dear world: i'm pleased to meet you (open)

Characters: David and YOU!
Setting: Cafeteria
Format: starting with action, but I'll match you
Summary: After putting up that initial network post, David heads for the cafeteria.
Warnings: Purple douchebags, cursing.

[Ugh, what the fuck is this. He prods at the oatmeal in front of him with his fork. PERHAPS THIS WILL GO AWAY IF I GLARE AT IT HARD ENOUGH.

Behind him, his shadow keeps moving. There's a pen and notebook in front of him, and he seems to be alternating between jotting ideas down and scratching them out.]

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[Link is finishing up his own meal and about to head out when he notices the boy with the moving shadow. Oh, the oatmeal... Link tilts his head in consideration, then decides to approach.]

Hello. [It's best to be polite. He'll explain about the oatmeal if the boy seems willing to listen. It wouldn't be a good idea, Link thinks, to walk up and immediately start talking and telling him things. If someone did that to Link, it would overwhelm him, and he doesn't want to do anything like that.]

[...oh god, what the hell. Legend of Zelda, seriously? He's going to default to assuming this is a cosplayer of some sort. Not going to bring it up, though.]

...Hello.

[Echo.]

Is this your first day?

[He won't smile, because he knows being here isn't a happy thing, especially after reading that letter, but he can at the very least be friendly.]

Yes. I've been told that I have been here before, though I think that I would very well remember something as maddening as this.

[yeah, he's obviously not pleased with the current situation. and...sorry, Link, he's not great at the whole "friendly" thing. just going to keep prodding at the oatmeal.]

And what of you? How long have you been a pawn trapped by the whims of our ever-so-gracious captors?

[It's okay. Link's dealt with worse back home and in Termina. Besides, he has all the reason in the world to be cranky.]

Not quite a month.

[Link is quiet for a moment because he's contemplating what this person first said. Been here before...? That's strange. If he's been here before, and he remembers being in his home last... Does that mean he went home and forgot all about it? So his home is definitely still there... Or, it could just be that he went somewhere else and his memories were just toyed with -- After all, if Link is leaving open the possibility that his memories have been lost, that means they could've just been tampered with, too. His other self said they were doing experiments here, and sometimes even taking people away, right? So maybe that's what happened...

... Link makes a mental note of this so he can ask other people who have been here longer about it.

He really, really doesn't like this place.]

Oh... And my name is Link. What's yours?

[He nods, still prodding at that goddamn oatmeal.]

Yes, of course it is.

[it's worse than he'd feared, the poor kid. he's fallen into this cosplay shit deep.]

David.

[... What was that supposed to mean? Link blinks.]

It's nice to meet you. [a pause] You have to eat it... [He means the oatmeal, of course.] If you don't, they won't let you eat anything else.

... Pity, that. I doubt there's any point in asking if it might do to flavor it somehow?

Plunging headlong into the abyss...

[ugh, fine. taking a bite.]

[At that, Link tilts his head. Flavoring oatmeal? With berries or something?] I don't know, I didn't try.

[But there he goes anyway, eating it. That's good, though.]

I didn't think it was that bad. [If it would help.]

Bland, unfortunate texture, but...tolerable.

It looks worse than it is. Though, that doesn't say much.

Honey would probably help. [Link nods.] Maybe some berries, too.

[At this, he pauses.] This place... I've heard that it's the opposite. Worse than it looks, I mean.

Now there's a thought.

I've gathered as much. And it hardly looks stellar to begin with, now does it?

[Oh, someone eating oatmeal! Must be new. Willow is perpetually curious, so she drifts over to investigate, carrying a plate, utensils and glass for her own lunch.

Maybe five or six feet from the table, she stills, having noticed his shadow moving. She eyes it, inherently distrustful after a lifetime of fighting the supernatural, but hey, she doesn't know anything about this guy yet. She'll give him a chance.

Plus, writing is a pretty innocuous hobby.] Hey, [she greets politely.] Newbie?

You might say that.

[Echo.

Still prodding at that damn oatmeal. Writing down more in that notebook.]

[... Okay, not exactly friendly. Willow stays where she is.]

Did everyone give you the Idiot's Guide to the Tower already? I see you have your oatmeal.

[he's a douchey 13 year old in a really bad place right now in every sense of that phrase, ok.

but yeah basically.]

I confess that I don't know much, outside of the initial letter and some doubtful "confirmations" that their farcical claims are at least partially accurate.

[Willow has encountered innumerable things that were not what they seemed, up to and including apparitions of dead people actually being the embodiment of the First Evil of the universe. Seven collective years of experiences like that sort of erases preconceptions from your mind.]

If you like, I can try to clear things up a little more. I've been here for a couple months, and I'm pretty familiar with the wacky. [She gestures briefly with her plate.] Mind if I join you?

[he gestures to the open seats around him.]

By all means.

[is he referring to her offer or her asking if she could join him? yes.]

[She's going to take that as meant both ways regardless, and settles herself into the seat across from him, sorting out her silverware and the like.]

So what have you heard already?

[finally taking another bite of that oatmeal. god, it's bland.]

Only the delightfully horrific tripe contained in the letter, and a few apparent validations of their absurd claim about our worlds.

In short, nothing of use or merit.

Some people actually think they're telling the truth? [Willow rolls her eyes.] Like illusions are even that difficult. I haven't found any convincing reason to believe that are worlds are all really gone.

I can tell you how things work, and what to look out for, but I don't have any real answers, either.

It would seem so, laughable though it is.

I can't conjure anything quite so complex, but illusions are simple at the core. A matter of bending light.

In any case... I'm listening.

[Wait wait wait, he's using the word conjure like he knows what it means.] You know how to conjure things?! [And suddenly she looks excited.] I'm a witch, but I haven't seen anyone else here that uses magic like I do. Not that I'm much for conjuring, actually it's pretty difficult, but still.

[She's totally distracted now and will have to be verbally poked to get back on track with the exposition. Whoops.]

... With regard to illusions, yes. My own abilities are oriented primarily around light and fortune.

[He's just. Going to avoid mentioning the darker shit picked up via the demonic SPATIAL RAPE wrapped around his soul.

aaaand as a brief demonstration, he'll stand up, bend the light to warp his apparent position to a few feet to the right, and tap the table a few times directly in front of Willow--even if it looks like the position's about two feet off, the sound is definitely coming from a closer source. aaaaand then he drops the trick, sitting down again.

What can he say? Showboating can be fun.]

In any case, while I've little doubt that this current thread of conversation would be most enlightening and entertaining indeed, I believe that you were delivering some much-needed exposition in order to set the wheels of the plot into motion.

[And she does look very appreciative of the showboating.] Wow, that was nifty! You didn't have to say words or anything, [she says, incredibly curious.]

--Right, okay, that darn plot waits for no one. [And she'll launch right into the explanation now.] This is probably going to sound more like a random list than a coherent narrative, but well, not exactly in charge of that.

So... a lot of the tower floors have hidden traps or dangers in them, like if you go too deep in the forest level, mutated animals attack you and disable your powers. Or the darkness level has things that will jump out and grab you. Also, you can't sleep away from your assigned room for too many consecutive nights-- not sure how many, but quite a few-- or you'll start going crazy.

Uh, there's a whole lot of wacky other dimension hijinks? Never more than two of each person, but they could be from anywhere and anywhen. And the network likes to spaz out a lot and play audio backwards or mess with the filters, things like that.

They bring us in on a schedule every two weeks based on collar color and replace the fluid in them, and there's no way to resist that I've heard of. ... I think that's everything off the top of my head. Wait, and we have seen evidence of who they are on the rare network post, but it hasn't given us anything really coherent to work with.

[he just shrugs in response to her wondering about the lack of incantation. he doesn't really know much more than you do, willow.]

... Never a dull moment, then. It's no wonder that it couldn't be held together.

Still, it's beyond obvious that there's more to this than they want us to believe...

Do we have any clues about the purpose of the collars?

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dear world: i'm pleased to meet you (open)

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